stereotype

International Women’s Day (a.k.a. IWD) was celebrated by us all and many of us have already liked social media posts or videos across the web. We all know that this day is dedicated to the species from Venus, but how many of us know what exactly IWD is? Why is it celebrated?

International Women’s Day is a day when we celebrate the social, cultural, economic and political achievements of women. This day also marks for accelerated ‘gender parity’. It all started back in the year 1908, when a group of 15,000 women marched on New York streets and openly demanded for their rights, better pay and shorter working hours. Since then, every year on 8th March, the entire world joins hands together to support, raise, inspire and motivate women across all fields of work. Every year, there are new challenges to female success, which make it difficult to achieve gender equality in all aspects of their lives. So, people across the globe come together to inspire and celebrate women’s achievements. The entire world rejoices in the extraordinary acts of women by standing together, as a united force to advance gender equality around the world.

Past years have focused on various themes such as ‘Woman and Human Rights’ and ‘World Free of Violence Against Women’. Last year, the IWD theme was ‘Pledge for Parity’. It was around asking people all over the world to pledge to help women achieve equality with men. This was to encourage women and girls to achieve their ambitions, face challenges and sustain against all odds and create inclusive flexible cultures.

This year, the theme for International Women’s Day was #BeBoldForChange. This theme was around women empowerment where the objective was to take bold steps to change today’s scenario where women are still striving hard to prove and stand up for themselves and fight against the stereotype belief of the society. The best part of such stand is that the society is changing; Changing in a better way! According to the recent National Family Health Survey 4:

The gender ratio at birth has increased to 919 per 1000 men compared to 914 per 1000 men NFHS 3.

The number of hospital births has increased to 78.9% from 38.7%

The number of mothers receiving full antenatal care has rose to 21% which was 11.6% in the last decade.

The color of the theme is Purple that symbolizes dignity and justice which are the two important goals of IWD aim to achieve for all women in all parts of the world.

Babycell understands that, the current conventional thoughts of the society towards women need to be changed and hence came up with #KillTheStereotype campaign in a humorous way. Here, we encouraged couples to talk about women killing the orthodox patriarchy, existing social beliefs and doing something extraordinary in various aspects of their lives. We also asked the husbands to share, in what way are they supporting their wives to kill these social-conventional opinions. Being in 21st century, it is high time that the women stop bearing all the social barriers and stand tall against all odds. For this, we all should take a step forward to #KillTheStereotype. This campaign is a tribute to all women across the globe for their great courage for proving that they are equal or better than the men.